Some Features of the Present Collapse

Published:Proletary, No. 32, July 2 (15), 1905.

      Published according to the text inProletary.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1973,

      Moscow,Volume 15,

      pages148-157.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Wehave repeatedly had occasion to comment on the ideological and
organisational collapseon the right, in the camp of the bourgeois
democrats and the socialist opportunists, a collapse which is inevitable
among parties and trends where petty-bourgeois intellectuals predominate,
in a period when counter-revolution is rampant. But the picture of collapse
would be incomplete if we did not also dwell on collapse“on the
left”, in the camp of the petty-bourgeois “Socialist-Revolutionaries

Ofcourse one can use the expression “on the left” in this case only
in a very relative sense, to characterise those who are inclined toplayat Leftism. We have already pointed out inProletarymore than once that it was ’just the period of the Russian revolution at
its highest peak which brought out particularly clearly, in open mass
politics, all the instability, lack of firmness and of principle of
S.R. “revolutionism”. It is sufficient to recall only the most
outstanding events. The autumn ’upswing in 1905; the S.R.s are in a secret
bloc with the Popular Socialists, who are all for. a legal “Popular
Socialist Party”. The congress of the S.R. Party in December 1905 rejects
the “plan” to form such a double of the S.R. Party, but in the spring and
summer up swing of 1906 we again see the S.R.s in the daily papers, i. e.,
in the main mouthpieces for agitation among the people, working in a bloc
with the Popular Socialists. The latter openly renounce the revolution in
the autumn of 1906, after the Sveaborg and

Kronstadt[5]defeat, and come out openly as opportunists—yet
nevertheless the elections to the Second Duma in St. Petersburg (in the
spring of 1907) again revive the “Narodnik bloc” of S.R.s, Popular
Socialists and Trudoviks.In short, the revolution has fully and finally revealed the absence of any
definite class foundation for the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, reduced it
in practice to the role of an adjunct or wing of the petty-bourgeois
peasant democrats andforcedit constantly to waver between verbal
revolutionary, impulses and Popular Socialist arid Trudovik diplomacy. The
separating out of the Maximalists, who all through the revolution were
constantly separating out of the Socialist-Revolutionaries but could not
get fully separated, only confirmed the class instability of Narodnik
revolutionism. There remains nothing for the S. B. Centre, the “pure”
S.R.s, to do—we had written in issue No. 4 ofProletary, in the
article entitled “Socialist-Revolutionary Mensheviks"—but to defend
themselves against both the “new” trends in Socialist-Revolutionism with
arguments borrowed from the

			      Marxists.[1]While the Social-Democrats emerged from the revolution with one definite
class, the proletariat, rallied securely behind it, and with two trends,
characteristic of all international Social-Democracy—opportunist and
revolutionary—sharply defined, the Socialist— Revolutionaries emerged
without any direct basis, without any defined border-line to divide them on
the one hand from the Trudoviks and the Popular Socialists, linked with a
mass of petty proprietors, or on the other hand from the Maximalists, as a
terrorist group of intellectuals.

Andnow, when Maximalism has disappeared (possibly only for a time) we
see the revival of a kindred trend in a new dress.Revolutsionnaya

Mysl,[6]the mouthpiece of a “group of
Socialist-Revolutionaries”, draws apart (No. 1, April 1908, No. 2, June
1908) from the “official organ of the S. B. Party”, i. e., from the
central organ,Znamya

Truda,[7]and announces the “revisionof our [i.e., S.R.]
theoretical out look, our S. B. methods of struggle and organisation”. Of
course all this “revision”, all this “critical creative work” promised
by the new paper is sheer phrase-mongering. In reality there is no question
of any revision of theory, nor can there be, since the new paper has no
theoretical outlook whatever—all it has is the re-echo, in a thousand
different keys, of appeals for terrorism, and a clumsy, inexpert,
naïveadaptation of their views on revolution, on the mass movement, on the
meaning of parties in general, etc., to this allegedly new but in reality
old, and indeed very old, method. The amazing poverty of such
“theoretical” acquirements stares one in the face when comparing them
wish the bombastic promises to revise, criticise and create. The complete
confusion of theoretical views both of the “new” and of the “old”
tendencies in Socialist-Revolutionism is all the more striking in thatRevolutsionnaya Myslitself underlines “the evolution taking
place in the views of those in charge of the official organ of the
’S.R. Party"—an evolution consisting in the most intensified emphasising
of “systematic central political terror” in order “to precipitate
events”. That is a quotation from No. 8 ofZnamya Truda. And in
No. 10–11 (February-March 1908) we find exactly the same talk about
“straining the. efforts of the whole party” for “central political
terror”, about the necessity of finding “large funds” for this purpose,
and together with this a “delicate hint” as to the possible source of
such funds. “All parties,” writesZnamya Truda, pp. 7–8;
“including the Cadets and the Peaceful Renovators, will enjoy the
immediate benefits of this activity. And therefore the party has the right
to count on the very widest public aid in this its struggle."

Thereader can see that there is nothing new in what the new paper
says. The only characteristic thing about it is that it provides
instructive material for the assessment ofpolitical collapse,
covered up by “Left” and supposedly revolutionary phrases. The Mensheviks
inGolos Sotsial-Demokrata(No. 1) justify their collection of
funds among the liberals on the grounds that there is a certain political
solidarity in their aims. The S.R.s inZnamya Trudasay to the
Cadets and the Peaceful Renovators: why, you will enjoy the
benefits. Extremes meet. Both petty-bourgeois opportunism and
petty-bourgeois revolutionism, albeit from different sides, “make eyes”
at the Cadets and the Peaceful Renovators.

Andit is not only in this that the extremes meet. The revolution has
brought disillusionment to both the Mensheviks and the “revolutionary”
Narodniks. Both are ready to dismiss the Party principle, the old Party
traditions, and the revolutionary mass struggle. “The mistake common tonearly all the revolutionary parties,” writesRevolutsionnoye

			   Nedomyslie,[2]“a mistake which has played a harmful role in the present crisis, consists
in an exaggerated belief in the possibility and necessity of a mass rising
of the people. Events have not justified the expectations of the party.”
In vain, it appears, did the Socialist-Revolutionaries build “a socialist
programme according to the Marxist model”, build up “a conception of the
revolution which identified it with a mass movement and mass insurrection
caused by economic needs, with a correction being made, however, for a
minority with initiative”. Instead of corrections, one must develop “the
theory and practice of the active functioning of an initiating minority”
(No. 1, pp. 6–7). One must exalt the significance “of the spontaneous
feeling which grips the revolutionary and the ideals which inspire him”
(No. 2, p. 1); as for theoretical questions, philosophy, scientific
socialism—all these are nonsense, in the opinion of the “new’
social-revolutionary obscurantists. “Is there hope of an armed uprising in
the more or less immediate future?” (that’s how they put it: “more or
less immediate”)—asksRevolutsionnoye Nedomyslie, and answers
itself: “All are agreed that there is no such hope” (No. 2, p. 2). The
conclusion is that in Russia “a political revolution cannot be carried out
except by a revolutionary minority” (p. 7). “The reasons for the failure
of the revolutionary parties during the last three years were not
accidental, and depended in our view not only on objective conditions and
not only on tactical mistakes, but lay also in the very conception of their
organisation” (p.,IO). The revolutionaries, you see, set themselves the
“impossible tasks” of really leading the masses. The Social-Democratsconfusedthe S.R.s and induced them, to the detriment of their
real job of terrorist struggle, to think about organising the peasantry and
preparing it for a universal armed uprising (p. 11). Extreme centralisation
of the parties—"rule by generals”, “the spirit of authoritarianism”
(p. 12)—there is the evil. “In a large and strong party ’the
revolutionaries saw the onlymeans and guarantee for achieving the object aimed at, and did not notice
either the practical impossibility in our Russian conditions of creating
such a party or all its dark sides” (p. 12).

Thisis enough, we think! The mental chaos that reigns inRevolutsionnaya Mysl, the obscurantism it preaches, the mean
philistine despair, timidity and disheartenment in face of the first
encountered difficulties on which its allegedly revolutionary programme is
built, are not worth wasting words on. The quotations we have made speak
for themselves.

Butlet not the reader think that these arguments are pure nonsense,
accidentally blurted out by an unknown and insignificant little group. No,
such a view would be mistaken. There is logic here, the logic of
disillusionment in their party and in a people’s revolution,
disillusionment in the capacity of themassesfor direct
revolutionary struggle. It is the logic of the keyed-up intellectual, of
hysteria, of incapacity for steady, stubborn work, of inability to apply
the basic principles of theory and tactics to altered circumstances, of
inability to carry on the work of propaganda, agitation and organisation in
conditions sharply differing from those which we recently
experienced. Instead of exerting every effort to fight the spirit of
philistine chaos which is penetrating not only the upper classes but the
lower classes as well; instead of gathering together more firmly the
scattered party forces to defend tried revolutionary principles; instead of
this, unbalanced people, detached from any class connection with the
masses, throw overboard all they ever learned, and proclaim “a revision”,
i. e., a return to the old rubbish-heap, to revolutionary rule-of-thumb
methods, to the sporadic petty group activities. No heroism on the part of
these groups or individuals in the terrorist struggle will alter the fact
that their activity as members of apartyis an expression ofcollapse. And it is extremely important to grasp the truth,
confirmed by the experience of all countries which have undergone the
defeat of a revolution, that one and the same psychology, one and the same
class peculiarity (that of the petty bourgeoisie, for example) is displayed
both in the dejection of the opportunist and in the desperation of the
terrorist.

“Allare agreed that there is no hope of an armed uprising in the more
or less immediate future.” Meditate over this flashy and hackneyed
phrase. These people have evidently never stopped to consider the objective
conditions which at first give rise to a full-scale political crisis, and
then, when the crisis becomes acute, to civil war. These people havelearned by heartthe “slogan” of armed uprising,
without havingunderstoodthe meaning of this slogan or its
applicability. That is why, after the first defeats of the revolution they
so lightly throw aside their ill-digested slogans, taken on trust. Whereas
if these people valued Marxism as the only revolutionary theory of the
twentieth century, if they had studied the history of the Russian
revolutionary movement, they would have seen the difference between
phrase-mongering and the development of really revolutionary slogans. The
Social-Democrats did not put forward the “slogan” of insurrection either
in 1901, when demonstrations caused Krichevsky and Martynov to begin
shouting about “the assault”, or in 1902 and 1903, when the late
Nadezhdin called the plan of. the oldIskra[8]“literary exercises”. They put forward the slogan of insurrection only
after January 9,

1905,[9]when not a single person could doubt any longer that a general
political crisishad broken out, that it was growing more acute
daily and hourly, by the direct movement of the masses. And within a few
months this crisisled toinsurrection.

Whatlesson follows from this? The lesson that we must now carefully
follow the new political crisis that is now brewing, teach the masses the
lessons of 1905 and the inevitability of every acute crisis developing into
an insurrection, and strengthen the organisation that will release this
slogan at the moment the crisis arrives. But it is a barren occupation to
ask, “is there hope in the immediate future"? The state of affairs in
Russia is such that no thoughtful socialist will venture to prophesy. All
that weknowand can say amounts to this, that without
reconstructing agrarian relations, without completely breaking up the old
land system, Russia cannot live—but live she will. The struggle is about
whether Stolypin will succeed in breaking it up the landlords’ way, or
whether the peasants, under the leadership of the workers, will do itthemselvesto suit their own purpose. The businessof the Social-Democrats is to imbue the masses with a clear understanding
of thiseconomicfoundation of the growing crisis, and to train up
a serious party organisation which could help the people to assimilate the
abundant lessons of the revolution, and would be capable ofleadingthem in struggle, when the maturing forces become fully
ripe for a new revolutionary “campaign”.

Butthis reply, of course, will seem “vague” to people who regard
“slogans”, not as a practical conclusion from a class analysis and
assessment of a particular moment in history, but as a charm with which a
party or a tendency has been provided once and for all. Such people don’t
understand that incapacity to adapt their tactics to the differences
between fully defined and not yet defined moments is the result of
political inexperience and narrowness of outlook. To strengthen
organisation, indeed!  Our heroes of the revolutionary “screech” turn up
their noses at such a humble, innocent task, which does not promise
“immediately”, at once, tomorrow morning, to provide a roar and a
crash. “Events have not justified the expectations of the party.” And
this is said after three years of. revolution, which gave unexampledconfirmationof the role and significance of strong parties. It
was the Russian revolution which in its very first period demonstrated that
it waspossibleeven under the Plehve

regime[10]to create apartythat was really capable of leadingclasses. In the spring of 1905 our Party was a league of
underground circles; in the autumn it became the party of themillionsof the proletariat. Did this happen “all at once”,
gentlemen, or did it take ten years of slow, steady, unobtrusive and quiet
work toprepareand ensure such a result? And if at such a moment
as the present one, the official and unofficial S.R. gentlemen are putting
regicideto the foreand not the task of setting up apartyorganisation among the peasant masses capable of hammering
out something more solid, more ideologically consistent, something more
firm and staunch, out of the jelly-like revolutionism of the Trudovik
current of opinion, we shall say that Narodnik socialism in Russia is
dying, that it has long since died, that its leaders are dimly aware of
their “bankruptcy” as Narodniks after the very first campaign of a
people’s revolution.

Wedid not expect that peasants would display capacity for a leading
role, or even an independent role, iii the revolution; and we shall not
lose heart at the failure of the first campaign, which revealed the vast
extent to which revolutionary-democratic ideas had spread among the
peasantry, even though these ideas were extremely hazy and’ sloppy. And we
will be able to work again as consistently and stubbornly as we did before
the revolution in order that the Party tradition should not be broken, in
order that . the Party should grow stronger and be able in thesecondcampaign to lead, not two or three million proletarians,
but five times or ten times as many. You don’t believe in this task? You
find it dull? Well, the door is open, worth-y friends; you are not
revolutionaries, you are simply ranters!

Andyour official organ treats the question of taking part in the Third
Duma in the same hysterical

				 way.[3]InZnamya Truda, No. 10–11, one such hysterical writer sneers at
themistakesof our Social-Democratic deputies in the Third Duma,
and exclaims about their statements: “Who knows anything about these
statements, about these votings and abstentions?” (p. 11).

Wesay to this: “Yes, our Social-Democratic deputies in the Third Duma
have made many mistakes. And this very example the S.R.s chose to quote
demonstrates the difference in the attitude ofa workers’ partyanda group of intellectuals. A workers’ party understands that in
a period of political lull and collapse the latter must inevitably show
itself in the Duma group too, since in the Third Duma it was even less
capable than in the Second of assembling large partyforces. Therefore the workers’ party criticises and corrects the mistakes
of its deputies. Every organisation, by discussing each speech and arriving
at the conclusion that such- and-such a statement or speech was a mistake,
provides material for political action by the masses. Don’t worry,
gentlemen of the S.R. Party: at the moment when the political crisis
becomes acute, our group—and in any case members of our Duma group—willknow how to do their duty. And our criticism of their mistakes is
done publicly, and openly, before the masses. Our deputies learn from this
criticism, the classes learn, the Party learns—the Party which has seen
hard times, and knows that it is not by ranting but only by the stubborn
and steadfast work ofallorganisations is it possible to emerge
with honour from a difficult situation. EvenProletary, which, as
a newspaper published abroad, realised that it was under an obligation to
give its advice from afar with care, openly proposed measures for improving
the work of the group. Our open Party criticism, added to the work of the
group, achieves the result that the masses know both the Duma statements
and thenatureof the Party’s corrections to them. And failure to
appreciate the Duma word at a time when Party organisations and the Party
press are facing the effects of the deep collapse, is a sign of boundless
intellectualist irresponsibility.

TheS.R.s don’t understand the importance of open socialist speeches
which are frankly criticised and corrected in the Party press. The S.R.s
prefer to hush up the mistakes oftheirrepresentatives: one more
reminder of this was in No. 10–11 ofZnamya Truda, when it abused
us for making “philistine” statements about Gershuni’s love of the
Cadets. We long ago expressed our opinion on this

			      question,[4]and would not start repeating it now, so soon after the death by torture at
the hands of the tsar’s executioners of a man who earned deep respect by
his loyalty to a revolutionary organisation. But since the S.R.s have
raised the question, we shall give our reply. You can answer us in no way
except by abuse, gentlemen; you cannot say, frankly and openly, which of
you approves or does not approve of Gershuni’sstand at the February (’1907) Congress of the S.R. Party. You cannot reply
on the substance of the matter and show up the mistakes of your leaders,
the number of their supporters, etc., because you do not have aparty, you attach no value to educating the masses by open
criticism of persons, statements, tendencies and shades of opinion.

Theworking class will know how to t.rain up and harden its
organisations by open criticism of its representatives. Not .all at once,
not without friction, not without struggle and not without hard work—butwe shall solvethe difficult problem which the difficult turn of
events has confronted us with, namely, to combine open speeches in the Duma
with illegal Party activity. In the working out of this problem will be
revealed the maturity of a party which has gone through the first campaign
of the revolution. And the working out of this problem will provide a
guarantee that in the second campaign the proletariat will be able, under
the leadership of Social-Democracy, to fight more ably and more unitedly,
and to gain more decisive victories.

[1]Seepresent edition, Vol. 11, p. 199.—Ed.

[2]Leninis sarcastically callingRevolutsionnaya Mysl(“Revolutionary Thought”) by this title, which means “Revolutionary
Thoughtlessness, Stupidity”.—Ed.

[3]Fora detailed analysis of S.R. boycottism, see the article on
“Parliamentary Cretinism Inside Out” inProletary, No. 18. In
the autumn of 1907, seemingly appealing to a genuinely revolutionary
boycottist tradition, the S.R.s were already in practice degrading this
tradition, cancelling it out, replacing the revolutionaryboycott-
assaultby pitiful and impotent “refusal to participate”. They were
already assuring a credulous public then that to “turn one’s back” on the
reactionary Duma meant inflicting “a big moral” defeat on the government,
and taking “the first serious step to changing the general political
picture”.

Then,too, we already exposed the true character of these
“revolutionary rhetorics ... of gentry who do not scruple to muddle the
heads of the masses for the sake of naive self-advertisement of their
party”.  —Lenin

[4]Seepresent edition, Vol. 13, pp. 153–60.—Ed.

[5]Thisrefers to the uprisings in Sveaborg (see present edition, Note 42)
and Kronstadt. The uprising of sailors and soldiers in Kronstadt started on
July 19 (August 1), 1906, after news had been received of the uprising in
Sveaborg. In the spring and summer of 1906, under the leadership of the
Bolsheviks, preparations had gone forward for an armed uprising of workers,
soldiers and sailors in Kronstadt. These preparations, however, were
considerably complicated by the arrest on July 9 (22) of most of the
members of the military and workers’ organisation of the
R. S. D. L. P. Nevertheless, with the support of the St. Petersburg
Committee and its representative, D. Z. Manuilsky, the Bolsheviks went
forward with their preparations for an armed uprising, while at the same
time rebuffing the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who had been provoking a
premature uprising. When the spontaneous Sveaborg rising broke out the
preparations for an armed uprising in Kronstadt had not been completed, but
in view of the events in Sveaborg the uprising in Kronstadt had to be begun
prematurely. The Bolsheviks took the lead in order to make the action as
organised as possible. At a pre-arranged signal the struggle was started
almost simultaneously by minemen, sappers, soldiers of the electric-mine
company, and sailors of the First and Second Naval Divisions, who were
joined by some of the armed workers. The government, however, had received
information fromagents provocateursof the time fixed for the
uprising, and had prepared in advance for the fight. Another factor that
worked against the uprising was the disruptive activities of the
Socialist-Revolutionaries. By the morning of July 20 (August 2) the
uprising was suppressed.

TheSt. Petersburg Committee of the R. S. D. L. P. passed a decision on
July 20 (August 2) to carry out a political general strike in support of
the Kronstadt and Sveaborg risings, but on news being received the next day
that the uprising had been suppressed this decision was revoked.

Thetsarist government took savage reprisals against the
insurgents. More than 2,500 participants in the Kronstadt uprising were
arrested. Sentenced by courts martial, 36 men were executed, 130 were sent
to penal servitude, 316 were imprisoned and 935 transferred to corrective
battalions.

[6]RevolutsionnayaMysl(Revolutionary Thought)—the
organ a group of S.R.s, published abroad from April 1908 to December
1909. Six issues appeared.

[7]ZnamyaTruda(Banner of Labour)—central organ of
the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, published in Paris from July 1907 to
April 1914.

[8]Iskra(Spark)—the first all-Russian illegal Marxist
newspaper, founded by Lenin in 1900. After the Second Congress of the
R.S.D.L.P. the Mensheviks seized control ofIskra. From November
1903, beginning with issue No. 52,Iskrabecame the mouthpiece of
the Mensheviks. From then on the "old”Iskrawas referred to in
the Party as the Lenin, BolshevikIskra, and the “new”Iskraas the Menshevik, opportunistIskra.

[9]January9, 1905—the day on which, by order of the tsar, the
troops fired on a peaceful procession of St. Petersburg workers headed by
the priest Gapon, who marched to the Winter Palace to present a petition to
the tsar. This massacre of unarmed workers started a wave of mass political
strikes and demonstrations all over Russia under the slogan “Down with the
autocracy!” The events of January the Ninth marked the beginning of the
1905-07 Revolution.

[10]ThePlehve regime—the harsh political regime introduced in
Russia in 1902 by the Minister of the Interior, V. K. Plehve, with the
object of combating the revolutionary movement.